A completed bridge linking Detroit and Canada is expected to open by the end of the month after U.S. and Canadian officials reached an agreement to resolve the dispute that delayed its debut, according to two people directly involved in the negotiations. The sources were not authorized to publicly disclose the deal before a formal announcement. A ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled...
Sniping over "Liberal lobbyists" working for a B.C. Conservative leadership campaign and federal Conservatives at odds over a new data centre announcement has some Conservatives calling for more discipline in the movement under Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre. On Thursday, Caroline Elliott, who finished a close second to Kerry-Lynne Findlay in the B.C. Conservative leadership race, issued a direct response to...
The number of people applying for a job in the federal government plummeted last year as Ottawa slashed the size of the public service. Two years ago, there were more than a million applications for jobs in the federal public service. But between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026, that number fell by nearly 30 per cent, to less than 735,000.
A better start to the youth summer jobs market helped the economy record steady employment gains in June, Statistics Canada said Friday. Employers added 18,000 jobs last month, the agency said, mostly in part-time and private sector work. That pushed the unemployment rate down a tenth of a point to 6.5 per cent, back to where it stood in January...
Some legislative changes pass with barely half of all senators casting a vote. Dozens of senators are routinely absent from the Red Chamber and some legislative changes pass with barely half of all members casting a vote, according to a CBC News analysis of attendance records. In the 12 months following the last federal election, the Senate convened for just...
The research gauged the views of Canadians on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s job of handling the economy.
Fresh polling by Pollara Strategic Insights offers a reminder of how disconnected most Canadians are from federal politics, with just 57% of Canadians able to name the leader of the federal Conservative Party and only 12% able to name the leader of the federal NDP. This leaves Avi Lewis with much to do this summer when it comes to introducing...
Annual gatherings of the great democracies in the age of Donald Trump have acquired a certain … rhythm. There is the meeting that takes place before the President arrives, when all is as it usually is between world leaders of the same broad ideological hue: convivial open sessions, chummy photo-ops, urgent side-conferences. Then there is what happens after he gets...
When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he promised to restore its commitment to free speech, eliminate its progressive bias and otherwise preserve its role as the “de-facto public square.” Instead, as anyone who has had the misfortune of spending time there knows, he turned it into a right-wing echo chamber — one increasingly populated with spam, crypto scammers and...
Grassroots Liberals in Beaches—East York will get their say on the party’s candidate in an upcoming byelection with a nomination contest in the Toronto riding that will run for just nine days. The party confirmed Thursday that it will hold an open race for the nomination, concluding with a vote on July 18.
The stage is now set for Premier Doug Ford to call key summer byelections in Scarborough Southwest and York—Simcoe. Ford’s Progressive Conservatives finally selected a candidate in Scarborough Southwest with family physician Dr. Noor Tarun winning a contested nomination Thursday night.
We lead two countries that do not have the luxury of relying on old orders of geography. Finland shares a border with a Russia that is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine and actively interfering in other societies instead of reforming its own. Canada shares the world’s longest land border with a United States that is reassessing its priorities...
“Rather than sitting here and arguing with each other, we’re actually going to get out there and talk to the people!” That’s how Premier Doug Ford defined the Legislature of Ontario. It was his defence for the unprecedented five-month break and the lowest number of days “The Ledge” will sit in decades.
Real life does not follow the binary framework of the movies, where a Bond-like hero vanquishes a grandiose, arrogant, greedy villain
It’s not often that a prime minister is lauded for something that he doesn’t do, but Prime Minister Mark Carney is currently being celebrated by six policy organizations for his inaction on an important Canadian regulatory matter. In an open letter published late last month, the CEO of the Canadian Health Policy Institute, the deputy director of domestic policy for...
I am sick to death of being told that wanting Conservatives to win elections somehow makes me a Liberal. It's one of the stupidest ideas ever to infect the Canadian political right (and there have been some doozies in recent years), and it has become an excuse for failure. Apparently, if you care whether Conservatives can actually form government, you're...
The grandaddy of all Stampede political announcements came on July 12, 2004, when PC Premier Ralph Klein held up a sign that said: Paid In Full. Klein declared the provincial debt dead and buried after many years of harsh cost-cutting. The words and the photo sped around the country and beyond. Nobody paid off all debt in those days. Within...
There are plenty of ways to celebrate America’s ongoing semiquincentennial: see a fight on the White House lawn, watch the World Cup in the shadow of the Capitol, visit a Great American State Fair on the National Mall. However they celebrate, Americans will likely see banners advertising Freedom250, a private vehicle for outright corruption cooked up by President Donald Trump...
He's not giving up. He's not backing down. If he was a boxer you'd need to knock him out. The man insists he is not throwing in the towel. He will continue to throw down the gauntlet. Wasn't so long ago Pierre Poilievre had the momentum, drew the huge crowds at rallies across Canada, attracted the young and the working...
I’m starting to believe that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is the subject of an elaborate, prolonged hazing ritual. The frat house in this scenario might have better decorum and nicer furniture than those found on college campuses, but the initiation process is the same: subject the pledge to a succession of humiliating rituals to see if and how long he...
The Conservative MP’s culture war posts about Prime Minister Mark Carney's attendance at Toronto Pride are bait for persecution points
Is this the end of Trudeau's independent upper chamber? Though it is perhaps not foremost on their minds when they gain power, every prime minister has the opportunity to put their stamp on the Senate. And if there was particular speculation about what Mark Carney might do in regards to Parliament's upper house, it is because Justin Trudeau's stamp on...
The Prime Minister's grand bargain is just intentions for now. But it's harder for Alberta’s separatists to say he's trying to hobble their industry.
Just how nonsensical does a pitch for a new oil pipeline have to be, in the current political climate, to be rejected out of hand? Courtesy of Doug Ford and Danielle Smith, we’re about to find out.
When it comes to theatre of the absurd in public life, nothing tops pipeline politics. There was Alberta Premier Danielle Smith—who has accused the Liberals of hamstringing Big Oil, crushing her province’s aspirations, and inciting Albertans to break up the country—turning to the feds to build her long-sought new pipeline.
Suddenly, pipelines are all the rage. Time was when you couldn’t get a pipeline built in this country, for love or money. Three pipeline proposals – Northern Gateway, Energy East and Keystone XL – came and went, dead of political hostility, regulatory obstacles or both. Governments, some of them anyway, seemed positively eager to discourage them. Federal legislation, Bill C-69...
Mark Carney had better hope that Tom Pitfield and Richard Martel are good senators. If they are not, it will be his fault. Carney announced the two appointments to the Senate on Tuesday, setting aside the non-partisan process established by Justin Trudeau who reformed the Senate appointment process for good reason. Every prime minister before him used the Senate as...
Do politicians start parades, or merely get in front of them? That’s a question Canadians might be asking this week, following news that the government was polling them on the issue of oil pipelines last fall — just days before Prime Minister Mark Carney announced an agreement with Alberta to explore building a new one to B.C.
Instead of building a winning coalition against Mark Carney, Poilievre keeps picking unnecessary fights with Conservatives who should be helping him win.
As NATO leaders gather in Ankara, Turkey, this week, much of the attention will inevitably be focusing on U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest complaints about burden-sharing and American leadership. That’s understandable. But, if the summit becomes consumed by familiar political theatrics, it will miss a far more important strategic opportunity. Ukraine has exposed a vulnerability in Russia’s war economy that...
The South Korean bidder, Hanwha, backed by its government, promised to put money into a Canadian steel plant and put commercials on TV. Germany’s TKMS proposed later subproduction in Canada and lined up Canadian subcontractors. Somewhere in there, on top of the bidding war for highly exaggerated “economic benefits,” was a choice between two top-notch diesel submarines, a key future...
Just over two years ago, the Liberal government released its defence policy review, Our North, Strong and Free, which purported to focus on Arctic sovereignty by defending Canada’s coastline from maritime and airborne threats.
While the Carney government bills itself as Canada’s “new government”, it has gone with the conventional choice in selecting a German-Norwegian consortium to supply and maintain up to 12 new submarines for the Royal Canadian Navy’s Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP). After a monthslong contest between South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha and the German/Norwegian consortium TKMS, Prime Minister Mark Carney went...
Donald Trump has often been described as unpredictable. And that’s true — but when he chose not to renew the CUSMA trade deal, no one could claim to be surprised. The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement could have been renewed by all three parties on its existing terms for an additional 16 years. Having announced this week that it would not be...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is proving that politics at its most important is a big-picture game. Which is to say, it isn’t only about the price of gas, the cost of housing, and the dozens of other kitchen-table issues that normally dominate the public debate.
Mark Carney keeps saying he’s running a new government, not just a sequel to the Justin Trudeau years. This week, Canadians may finally have to admit he’s right. As the door opens to a new Alberta pipeline, Carney closed the door on the Trudeau era.
Let’s thank U.S. President Donald Trump for one thing. As Ottawa launches a national competition to restore 24 Sussex Drive, the White House renovations are a lesson in what not to do. A master class, really. Trump is building to glorify himself. The “goldening” of the Oval Office, the transformation of the Rose Garden into a Mar-a-Lago-style patio designed to...
Natalie Lum is proud of a rare and “awkward” conversation she had recently. It was on separatism — a subject people here in Drumheller, Alta., said they normally don’t bring up in what some refer to as polite society.
The historic residence of Canada’s Official Opposition leader needs to be fixed, but the commission in charge of official residences in the Ottawa region says it has no firm plan on how to proceed. Stornoway, a 9,500-square-foot mansion located in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood, is more than a century old. The official residence is currently home to Conservative Leader Pierre...
A surprise contender may be about to shake up the race for Toronto mayor. Former federal immigration minister and Conservative MP Chris Alexander confirmed to the Star on Thursday he’s weighing a run for the city’s top office.
Nova Scotia's premier says the province has the infrastructure and people needed to meet the expected demands of hosting a new submarine fleet, but critics say more should be done to address clogged roads and hospitals and increased housing prices. Tim Houston says officials have been investing in housing, health care and skilled trades in anticipation of increased pressures on...
We lead two countries that do not have the luxury of relying on old orders of geography. Finland shares a border with a Russia that is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine and actively interfering in other societies instead of reforming its own. Canada shares the world’s longest land border with a United States that is reassessing its priorities...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says a personalized, engraved pistol he was gifted by Türkiye’s president has been decommissioned. “I would like to reassure Canadians they keep guns away from me,” he said during a news conference in Saudi Arabia on Thursday. “It struck me that my gift of maple syrup kind of undermatched the, whatever it was, .357-calibre,” he added...
As the ongoing war in the Middle East continues to devastate energy supply chains in Asia, Japan’s top diplomat to Canada says his country sees enormous potential in Canadian oil as Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to turn his energy superpower ambitions into reality. Ambassador Kanji Yamanouchi sat down with CTV Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos following Carney’s announcement last...
As he seeks new economic partnerships around the world, Prime Minister Mark Carney says publicly calling out other countries on issues like human rights is not helpful. “I do see that lecturing countries from afar is an ineffective strategy,” Carney said in a press conference with reporters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Thursday. “It’s satisfying, but it’s ineffective.”
Pierre Poilievre has found himself embroiled in another dispute within the Tory ranks, this time with a defeated B.C. Conservative leadership candidate who has accused the federal leader of putting personal grievances ahead of the public interest. “Hi, Pierre. Caroline Elliott here. I voted Conservative my entire life. I voted for you in your own CPC leadership race. My family...
The U.S. ambassador to Canada says there is plenty of blame to share on both sides of the border for the souring of the Canada-U.S. relationship and the deterioration of the free trade deal between the two countries. Pete Hoekstra says “irritants” and “tensions” need to be addressed before talks can resume on renewing the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which...
Canada is objecting to the International Olympic Committee loosening its suspension on Russian athletes. The move would apply to the 2028 games in Los Angeles, opening the door for Russian athletes to compete, but the IOC says it will decide later if they could do it with the Russian flag and anthem. Secretary of State for sport Adam van Koeverden...
Eddie Goldenberg, who served as chief of staff to former prime minister Jean Chrétien, has died. A statement from Global Public Affairs CEO Randy Pettipas, where Goldenberg worked, says Goldenberg died "after a hard-fought battle with cancer." Originally from Montreal, Goldenberg was a lawyer by trade and spent a decade as a senior policy adviser for Chretien before ultimately being...
Canadians support Mark Carney’s approach to managing the economy, even though he’s presided over the worst first year of growth for a prime minister since at least 1963. A Nanos Research Group poll for Bloomberg News shows 60 per cent of Canadians think Carney has done a very good or good job of handling the economy. That compares with 2...
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says she raised human rights concerns and specific consular cases involving Canadian citizens during a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Jeddah on Thursday. “Engagement doesn’t mean endorsement,” Anand said. “It is necessary to fulfil Canadian values, to represent those values on the world stage and to bring...
Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, as he seeks to deepen bilateral trade and investment after years of diplomatic strain. Carney's trip -- the first to the country by a Canadian prime minister in 26 years -- also saw him meet with business leaders in Jeddah, a port city on...
NDP Leader Avi Lewis will not run for a seat in any upcoming federal byelections. "For now, his focus is on rebuilding the party, in keeping with discussions with the NDP caucus and elected officers, as well as the overwhelming mandate given to him by members to revive the party and prepare it for the next election," the party told...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says it's "unacceptable" that Iran has launched attacks on commercial ships in recent days as it attempts to tighten its grip over the Strait of Hormuz. Anand met with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Thursday and she says Canada stands alongside Persian Gulf countries as Iran lashes out against them. Speaking with reporters in Jeddah, Saudi...
Should questions about Alberta’s place in Canada be left only to Albertans? Or is it a national issue that should engage other Canadians, especially those with the skill to make a passionate argument for unity? Is that unwanted meddling?
Carney said decision was made 'months ago' — when government was touting its work. A corporate watchdog was still accepting complaints right up until the point Prime Minister Mark Carney announced its dissolution — seemingly out of nowhere — despite saying the decision to discontinue the office was made "months" earlier. The Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) was introduced...
Canada is putting international law as one of its top priorities at the United Nations -- as others accuse Ottawa of pulling its punches. Canada's UN ambassador David Lametti says international rules are "under strain" by major and regional powers, and that Ottawa is alarmed by countries killing civilians, aid workers and UN staff. "I don't think anyone's attacking humanitarian...
A new automaker has entered Canada’s electric vehicle market giving some consumers looking to purchase a new vehicle more options. Lotus, owned by the Chinese Geely Group, recently shipped its first Eletre EVs to Canada under a Canada-China deal signed in January. The premium SUV, made in Wuhan, is the first Chinese-owned and Chinese-built EV available for sale in Canada...
Prime Minister Mark Carney was given a personalized, engraved pistol and live ammunition by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he departed the NATO summit in Ankara on Tuesday. The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed all NATO leaders received the unusual gift from Erdogan. Global Affairs Canada said in a statement to reporters travelling with Carney that the gun has been...
The Conservative Senate caucus added a member to its ranks a day after Prime Minister Mark Carney moved to appoint one of his closest allies to the chamber. Leo Housakos, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, announced that independent Senator Jim Quinn is joining the Conservative Senate caucus. “Senator Quinn’s decades of public service, leadership and commitment to...
Meta says Alberta will be home to its first artificial intelligence data centre in Canada. The tech company behind Facebook says the $13-billion project is to be located in Sturgeon County, north of Edmonton. It says the one-gigawatt data centre will be powered by a natural gas power plant. It's to feature a closed-loop water cooling system so it won't...
A document prepared for the federal artificial intelligence minister to use when pitching international investors on Canada's AI ecosystem identifies a massive proposed increase in Canada's data centre capacity. But spokespeople for the government pushed back strongly on the figure, saying it is not a projection of the capacity Canada expects to build, and the total capacity will be much...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has arrived in Saudi Arabia as he seeks economic partnerships with a strategically important country whose notorious human rights record is only getting worse. Carney is in the city of Jeddah on the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in what will be the first visit to Saudi Arabia by a sitting Canadian prime minister...
Richard Martel and Nate Erskine-Smith resigned their seats in the House of Commons on Tuesday, setting a clock ticking ahead of a pair of byelections in Quebec and Ontario -- and they are not the only ones. Voters in a number of ridings across the country will be asked to choose new federal representatives in the coming months as members...
President Donald Trump threatened to drop a diplomatic bomb on Canada at the height of his crazed “51st state” ramblings, according to insiders. Trump began publicly flirting with the idea of absorbing Canada into the U.S. in late 2024, and it soon became a hallmark of his second term. He would refer to then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the “governor”...
Prime Minister Mark Carney defended the appointment of his principal secretary Tom Pitfield to the Senate, saying that having people with different areas of expertise is important for the institution. Pitfield, a longtime Liberal strategist, was one of four new appointments announced Tuesday, as the prime minister drops the non-partisan criteria for appointments to the upper chamber. Carney told reporters...
Trump says he might have skipped NATO summit if not for friendship with Turkish president. Prime Minister Mark Carney has backed the latest U.S. strikes on Iran, calling it an appropriate response to ceasefire violations. The remarks were made on the way into the NATO Summit in Ankara, where President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire with the Islamic nation over...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- Graham Platner on Friday submitted his paperwork to formally withdraw from Maine's U.S. Senate race, officially ending an upstart yet troubled campaign whose dissolution threatens Democrats' pursuit of chamber control.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the days after two American citizens were shot and killed in Minneapolis earlier this year, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the department would "rapidly acquire and deploy" body cameras to its officers around the country.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Crews are again draining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as President Donald Trump's problem-plagued efforts to revamp the waterway pushes well past his initial goal of having it ready by July 4 to mark the nation's 250th birthday.
President Donald Trump has chosen not to sign a sweeping housing affordability bill Friday, in protest of Congress not approving a strict voter ID bill that lacks sufficient support to pass.
As he seeks new economic partnerships around the world, Prime Minister Mark Carney says publicly calling out other countries on issues like human rights is not helpful. “I do see that lecturing countries from afar is an ineffective strategy,” Carney said in a press conference with reporters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Thursday. “It’s satisfying, but it’s ineffective.”
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says she raised human rights concerns and specific consular cases involving Canadian citizens during a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Jeddah on Thursday. “Engagement doesn’t mean endorsement,” Anand said. “It is necessary to fulfil Canadian values, to represent those values on the world stage and to bring...
Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, as he seeks to deepen bilateral trade and investment after years of diplomatic strain. Carney's trip -- the first to the country by a Canadian prime minister in 26 years -- also saw him meet with business leaders in Jeddah, a port city on...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says it's "unacceptable" that Iran has launched attacks on commercial ships in recent days as it attempts to tighten its grip over the Strait of Hormuz. Anand met with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Thursday and she says Canada stands alongside Persian Gulf countries as Iran lashes out against them. Speaking with reporters in Jeddah, Saudi...
Canada is putting international law as one of its top priorities at the United Nations -- as others accuse Ottawa of pulling its punches. Canada's UN ambassador David Lametti says international rules are "under strain" by major and regional powers, and that Ottawa is alarmed by countries killing civilians, aid workers and UN staff. "I don't think anyone's attacking humanitarian...
Federal-provincial transfers are among the most important – and politically contested – features of Canadian public finance, yet they remain among the least understood. Based on the principle that Canadians, regardless of where they live, should have reasonably comparable access to public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation, the equalization system serves a core stabilizing role in Canada’s decentralized...
Family members make up roughly one-quarter of Canada’s annual permanent resident admissions, and governments regularly celebrate family reunification as a pillar of Canadian immigration policy. Yet, the Family Class Program still reflects a narrow, outdated understanding of what constitutes a family and continues to impose inconsistent, sometimes opaque barriers that prevent many migrant families from reuniting.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Canada’s political and media spheres seem to have developed an unhealthy obsession with the CUSMA. Will it survive the whims and shifting moods of the US president? Will we ever regain the level of access to the American market that we took for granted just a few years ago? What price will we have to pay to preserve what remains...
The great promise of the post-war era was that growth and fairness could advance together. That promise is breaking down – not just because of government failures, but because the nature of growth has changed. The same knowledge economy that is generating extraordinary growth requires fewer people to create it – and concentrates its rewards in fewer hands. Today’s increasingly...
In 1995 the Canadian economy was not exactly humming along – it still hadn’t got its mojo back after the severe 1990-92 recession. The unemployment rate was 9.5%, GDP per capita had only just made it back to the level of 1989, and steep spending cuts in Paul Martin’s February budget signaled more contraction.
Peter Mazereeuw speaks with Darren Hawco, a senior defence advisor for Deloitte Canada and retired vice-admiral in the Royal Canadian Navy, about Canada's plan to buy 12 new submarines, which the prime minister has called the largest defence procurement in Canadian history.
In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on July 10, 2026, Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson begin with a discussion of a recent Wall Street Journal piece highlighting Prime Minister Mark Carney’s role in pulling Europe back toward a more realistic strategic footing and away from its longstanding dependence on the United States. Canada, and Carney in particular...
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a $100-billion dollar contract to replace Canada's submarine fleet will be awarded to Germany and Norway, marking the largest contract of its kind in Canadian history. The choice though, goes beyond the subs themselves and sends broader signals to who Carney is eyeing to create lasting trade relations with.
Mark Carney met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia this week, aiming to strengthen ties and build up our economic relationship in areas like AI and critical minerals. It’s been 26 years since a Canadian Prime Minister visited the country, despite the fact that they’re a major trading partner. The relationship had come with friction over things...
